Stick curling a great way to stay active over the winter months

When golf season winds down each fall, Niagara-on-the-Lake resident Janet Trinder’s social life shifts from Eagle Valley Golf Club just outside of St. Davids to the Niagara Falls Curling Club. 

There, the energetic and outgoing Trinder participates in stick curling, a form of the sport in which the rock is released from an upright position rather than from a crouch out of the hack, as  most people are familiar with. 

And with about 45 members of the Niagara Falls club hailing from NOTL, Trinder feels the Morrison Road location is the unofficial home for curlers from the town. And the Pittsburgh native is hoping to see more familiar faces on the ice this winter. 

The club is hosting a series of Learn to Curl open houses this week, continuing to Friday, October October 6. Trinder invited The Local out to Tuesday morning’s session to give it a try. 

Sheldon Rodgers, a one-time club president, greets this reporter in the social area of the club and helps me fit a pair of grippers over my everyday running shoes. He then walks me down to the ice surface, where he hands me a stick for our tutorial. 

“Stick curling is a safer form of the sport,” Rodgers says as he walks us up and down the sheet twice to gauge the slipperiness of the ice. “It’s great for those people who may be able to get down in the hack but whose knees and backs can’t get them back up from that position so well.”

The stick is about six feet long with a plastic attachment designed to fit over the handle of the rock. After I step into the hack, Rodgers encourages me to lock my right elbow at my side and extend my arm straight out in front of me, holding the stick in the palm of my grip.

Depending on which way the rock is to be aimed, the handle begins at either the two o'clock or the ten o’clock position. To throw the rock toward the house, it takes a simple, steady walk up the ice sheet, releasing the rock smoothly from the stick back in the 12 o’clock position while continuing my forward motion. 

It took a few throws to get used to the smooth release, but within a couple of ends I was getting the hang of it, able to curl the rock toward a target.  

Tinder curls exclusively with the stick these days, as do a handful of other NOTL residents, mostly retirees. The stick curlers play in the daytime from Tuesday to Thursday most weeks, while she says the night curlers usually play the traditional way. 

“Being able to use the stick,” says Trinder, “is a way to keep us playing the game we love as it gets harder physically to get up and down all the time.”

Sue Barlow from St. Davids was out Tuesday to try the sport for the first time, encouraged by two friends who play in the evenings. She was also starting to get comfortable being on the ice and pushing the rock with a stick. 

Watching from up in the lounge was 91-year-old Pearl Maves. The oldest member of the club  has been curling for 70 years, though she is currently sidelined with an arm injury. Maves says she is just as comfortable curling with or without the stick. 

"I’m sitting here almost crying because I can’t curl this year,” she tells The Local. “I still curl the regular way, but I may have to go to stick curling once I can get back on the ice. I love the feel of being down there, sliding with the rock, but there have been times I felt that I couldn’t get the rock down the ice, so I switched to the stick.”

Niagara Falls resident Randy Elliot curled back in high school at A. N. Myer Secondary. He drifted away from the sport but came back to it after he retired about 12 years ago. He switches from time to time between traditional and stick curling methods of play.

“My body is starting to get older,” Elliot admits. “Sometimes I get down there and can’t get up that quickly. I might eventually have to go to the stick full time, and you know, there’s nothing wrong with the stick. I’ve played against some people who use the stick and they’ve whupped me.” 

Like most curlers, Elliot and Trinder enjoy the social aspect of the game as much as they do the game itself, stick or no stick. 

“The game is just to get you out here to have some fun,” Elliot proclaims. “Going up there (the lounge) and talking to everyone, and meeting new people, that’s a major part of senior curling here.”

Trinder, a member of the Niagara Falls club’s board of directors, points out that new members who want to ease into the club can join on a trial basis for a half-year at a price of $225. 

Trinder is certain that anyone who does so will soon want to move up to a full adult membership, which is $840 per year. A social membership, which allows you to participate in club bonspiels and social events and to play out of club for Ontario Curling Association competitions, is only $60.

The free Learn to Curl open houses continue Thursday October 5 and Friday October 6 from 10:00 am until noon. Get out and try it, stick or no stick, and tell Janet The Local sent you.